If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Steam Machines Prototypes: Intel CPU, NVIDIA GPU

10-04-2013, 04:20 PM

Phoronix: Steam Machines Prototypes: Intel CPU, NVIDIA GPU

After last week announcing Steam Machines as the Valve-backed Steam "living room consoles" (a.k.a. Steam Box) powered by the Linux SteamOS, today Valve has released the prototype hardware details that they will be shipping to 300 beta testers...

Comment

No real surprises there, this combo does offer the best possible performance and stability for games on Linux. I guess Nvidia is happy to be included in at least ONE tv console.
Though, I do wonder why they are going with such high-end boxes when there's little doubt that the vast majority of customers will be wanting something <$500, so testing the lower boundaries on acceptable perfromance seems more worthwhile...

Comment

No one is surprised by this choice. AMD could've had this one in the bag with their APUs if they just kicked themselves more in the ass when it comes to their drivers.

exactly, their upcoming apu's are supposed to be getting 20% cpu improvement, they could stick a highend gpu on the chip too and we would have a terrific chip. AMD's lack of funds results in lower quality linux drivers though.

Comment

So, with these machines having two GPUs (intel + nVidia), can games make use of this somehow? i.e. can the two GPUs work together to render a single frame? I'm talking Linux software wise. Does Linux currently support such thing?

Comment

The low end among these machines will probably beat the PS4 on all ends. The high end one will blow it out of the water. Can't wait.

If I look on this Steam Machine specs, it looks not like a usual game console, but rather like a gaming PC. I'm hoping the steam controller will work on standard gaming PC's too, because I'm not willing to replace my PC yet!

2- NVIDIA you better get your Sh!t together and give A+ support for Linux (and seems they have begun !). And YO , AMD/ATI, we not going to give you the whole gaming monopoly, so if you get your Sh!t together too and behave we'll start promoting you soon. Everyone must support linux!

3- We're waiting a bit till parts start lowering costs so we can give you a mid range pc for those looking for something mid range like consoles. Consoles = the mid range crowd. No point doing that this year since parts prices will get lower soon enough.

Comment

So, with these machines having two GPUs (intel + nVidia), can games make use of this somehow? i.e. can the two GPUs work together to render a single frame? I'm talking Linux software wise. Does Linux currently support such thing?

Since they are different vendors I'm 99% sure they can't. I am wondering though if they can squeeze a tiny bit more performance out of this by only rendering on the discrete GPU and using the iGPU to display. I know that work was either upcoming or merged.